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Cheap Shotz T
here is a serious shortage of drummers in Vancouver. Just ask the black-clad hotties in the Rumours. First Kim Urhahn left all-girls quartet to keep the beat for another all-girls quartet, Lillix. Then Urhahn’s replacement was promptly fired for reasons unknown, leaving the remaining members to continue searching for the musical love child of the Ramones and the Donnas.
guys blow every band off the stage. There’s only one problem: Big Beers has prior commitments with the Real McKenzies and the Hos have a two-week tour planned for early July. If there are in fact any drummers left in the city, visit the band’s web site @ www.thegunghos.com for more info. As for the Excessives, they are currently looking for a new band. The critically acclaimed hardcore surf punk four-piece have been raped and pillaged by The Real McKenzies. Not only did those Scottish rogues scoop Big Beers with the lure of traveling the world courtesy of Fat Wreck Chords, they also borrowed bassist Jamie Fox for an indeterminate amount of time. Potential applicants must look good in heavily ornamented sleeveless jean jackets and must not shy be of the fame and glory that comes along with headlining at the Cobalt. For more info, email theexcessives@hotmail.com
The Felchers are pretty much dead and gone unless they find someone to stick behind the kit. Not to worry though. Bassist Shawn Blondin and guitarist Adam Payne rawk so hard that it won’t be long before Vancouver’s incestuous rock scene will reproduce another inbred super group. Speaking of putting together kick-ass super groups, the Gung-Hos got it locked. The current line-up includes, Hi-Test’s Joe on geetar, the Excessives’ Jono (music ed’s personal favourite) on geetar, Hi-Test’s Mike on bass and The Hell Caminos Roche taking centre stage with his soulful punk metal screech and of course, Eddie Big Beers on drums. No matter who’s on the bill or where they play, these
Jason Grimmer of the Nasty On
Notice to our readers: In the last issue an article ran about the legalities of having sex with people under 18. As the result of an editing error, the article alluded to “drugging” people. The Nerve does not condone such actions nor promote them. We apologize if these comments offended anyone. Editor-in-Chief
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by Sarah Rowland
On a totally different subject, the new Pic owners are apparently a little confused about how to run a live music venue….um, here’s a suggestion: GIVE THE BAND BEER! As of midMay, the very musicians who sweat out all their
blood, rock and tears to pack the joint are no longer privy to a bucket of promotional brew…a first in rock ‘n’ roll history. It’s no industry secret that thirsty talent is not happy talent. Case in Point: By now you’ve probably read about Nasty On’s Jason Grimmer’s outburst on the May 23 show at the Pic, where the otherwise easygoing singer led the crowd to chant “Fuck You” over and over again. According to Grimmer, he was choked because of the shabby treatment by one particular staffer and management’s shitty attitude towards the bands. Grimmer stresses that his anger was in no way directed at Steve Chase of Fireball Productions. Chase, who has been booking the room for the last six years, responded by saying that he is still committed to working with the new owners to keep one of Vancouver’s premier music venues a musicianfriendly place to be…but on the other hand, Chase says he understands Grimmer’s frustration. Got something to say? cheapshotz@thenervemagazine.com
Whole Lotta Zero
When you are young, it is important to be well-liked by everyone you meet. As you get older, it becomes more important just to take a few of them down with you. Cowboy Zero
Hey! What the hell? THE NERVE HIT SQUAD King Pin (a/k/a Editor-In-Chief) Bradley C. Damsgaard Lady Godiva (a/k/a Music Editor) Sarah Rowland Father Gary (a/k/a Visual Arts Editor) Jason Ainsworth Shotgun (a/k/a Film Editor) Bjorn Olson Friend of the Family (a/k/a Adult Content Editor) Jason Wertman The Getaway Driver (a/k/a Production Manager) Pierre Lortie Map and Details (a/k/a Art Director) Saturnin The Henchmen (a/k/a Design & Graphics) Pierre Lortie, Saturnin, B. Damage The Muscle (a/k/a Staff Writers) Atomick Pete, A.D. MADGRAS, Mike O, Casey Bourque, Sinister Sam, Adler Floyd, Aaronoid, Dmidtrui Otis, Angela Fama, Billy Hopeless, Emily Kendy, Dennis Regan, DRock and Miss Kim, Jenni Nelson, Matt Davies, Michael Mann, Adrian Mack The Cleaner (a/k/a Cover Design) Saturnin Advertising (a/k/a Fire Insurance) Brad Damsgaard The Nerve is published monthly by The Nerve Magazine Ltd. The opinions expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect those of The Nerve Magazine or its editors... but often do. First publishing rights only are property of The Nerve Magazine cause we have no desire to “own” you. The Nerve does not accept responsibility for content in advertisements. The Nerve reserves the right to refuse any advertisement or submission and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, artwork or women. Copyright 2003 508 - 825 Granville St. Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1K9 604.734.1611 www.thenervemagazine.com
Dropkick Murphys Eddie Big Beers Sam Roberts Paul Di’anno Lagwagon GHB: The Next Big Thing? COLUMNS
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G
allery Viewpoint! A new feature where in we display the works of common place scums and filthers! It’s a particularly weak column this month because they are replacing the plumbing in my building and it’s going to take 10-12 business days and its really hard to concentrate! They smashed a hole my wall! All the best art nowadays is not done by real arty types with goatees but by soldiers, farmers, criminals, loonies, assholes, whores, dickheads, soldiers and he-men bully boys. And why wouldn’t it be this way? Just let it blow all the minds. And perverts, immigrants, vagrants, hill-folk, Muslims, greasers and auto mechanics, all sorts of bad people are making fun pictures these days. We all know this is because of a low standard of educationing in the academies, and also because of the gov-
ernment with all the fine-friends and leg-men all there, giving away fagrants to all the fag-zines and art galleries full of bricks… and then these, these hippies go and sell it all for so many dollars in thousands it makes my head ache. They are ringing the bells of a disequilibriumated art market that can only be solved by piles of dead. The first hole they cut in the kitchen wall was in the wrong place, so now they... they’re going outside to put in a second hole, right through the splashguard. Yes, they’re just cutting a hole through the splashguard. I could not make this up, it’s so loud in here! They didn’t measure the second hole tight so tomorrow it’s a third hole coming! So the other day I was having a tete-a-tete with my new friend “Alan” the Honduran illegal immigrant drug addict. Sweet reward. Hot stuff.
FARMYARD! He drew a farm yard. I could barely understand the way he spoke, he can’t even speak English, the no-good foreigner (LOL!) crazy animal man with his “accent” and Earthy turning of a phrase. (We’re just joking, Alan, you gay sex druggy diseased alien man-prostitute master of the affordable oral tongue-laugh mouthful cock-working!) I don’t like my friend Alan… even less than most people who just spit on him as he walks by! Where is all this going!?! I asked him to draw me a picture! He said he didn’t know how! I told him to do it now! He did it then! Kaboom! FUCK! When I asked former Nerve contributor Ken Danby the world famous artist to contribute a “compare and contrast” drawing of a farmyard, well, he just blew me off. So-called success has gone to Ken Danby’s head. Think you’re a man of the people, Ken? No you’re not. You’re just a rotten damn liar. Anyway, even if Ken Frigging Danby leg-man Danby had lowered himself to such an extent as to give me a picture of a frigging farm it would never have been half as good as Alan the exo-pervert’s. I can proove it mathematiclly! Yes, Ken Danby. You know what sort of fancy-pants farm he’d come up with. That jerk would just do this big, lush rural thing, with a few cows, a duck. Now look at Alan! Look at what he did with that duck! You can set your watch by that duck, because its about to go into the duck pond! Splash! CRASH!FUCK!BOOM!FUCK! SUCK!BOOM!CRASH! Alan paints the farm like he knows it! HE KNOWS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT BEING ON A FARM! KEN DANBY! YOU READING THIS KEN DANBY!? He tries to say he knows about the farm he
by Jason Ainsworth
knows nothing about the farm and the ducks! His ducks go to hell with himself! THANKS FOR THE FUCKING DRAWING ALAN; YOU DID A GREAT JOB CUNT! This is going to be a regular feature, hopefully! A monthly magazine gallery, so to speak of Naive outsider art brut by all sorts of scummers! If you happen to be a disgusting hillbilly, jailed thief, molester, orthodox Jew, autistic youth, whatever, send in your pictures for professional review! YOU only have yourself to blame, so reach for the stars! Number ONE! Retarded kids! Precious Moments! A bonus section of random thoughts and ponderences. It’s like a snowfall inside and I wish I’d put plastic all over the furniture! They warned! FUCK! They just ripped out a huge length of pipe and it gouged about a meter-long slice in the roof of the kitchen,. There is dust all over everything and I think the dust has lead in it because the building is so old! This is so irritating and I can’t believe it takes two weeks to pull out a bunch of pipes and then put new pipes back in! Has any one seen those, icecream things, a paedohile van with the sides cut out? Jesus, when I was a boy we had fellows on push bikes selling the iced-cream. I mean, what is the meaning of this? Those vans just look so seedy. When it went by the thing was playing “music box dancer” by Bach. This is no good at all and it’s creepy, awful, dusty and loud. Boo. Cheers! to Gary Glitter on the celebration on his sixtieth birthday on June 17! I can’t believe he’s given us so many great years of great music.
Live and learn. Happy Birthday Gary! Artopolis just opened last month. It’s being held in a warehouse somewhere. They never get it right because they make it a closed game, and a real biennale has to invite in real top-artists from the States and Europe and Japan or it’s just a stupid pointless Canadian art show. Canadians are no good at art because they don’t really like it. They think it’s faggy. I’m British myself, 110%, and I’ve always hated you Canadian scum. I piss on the day my parents left Cardiff. Colonial barnyard-animal pissant useless country. Got rejected by the White Alabama Knights of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Again. They know that I already have an outfit made up but I can’t even get a frigging membership card... but, you know, I just can’t stay mad at the Klan. My outfit’s great, a sexy white number, all pleather and playtex, with bulges in all the right places. Why don’t they like me? Cheers to Bukowski’s Bar on Commercial Street, with its long time monthly mixture of painting shows and live music ensembles! They have Nicole Steen on right now. For the longest time I avoided that bar because I had it confused in my mind with that disgusting hippie bar further up Commercial! I was so wrong! The filthy hippies stay in their horrible bar and rot there! Bukowski’s gets a clean bill of health in the hippie department. Go away, Mr Hippie-with-the-kettleand-no-money-hippie! Go and burn in hell with your attitudes and your leftwings.
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by Atomick Pete
Pot Decrim: A Step Forward or just Another Scam? F
or quite awhile now the Canadian government has been talking about decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot. A bill currently before the Commons would give possession of 15 grams or less a $150 fine, rather than criminal charges. At first glance all this sounds pretty good. Well, it’s still illegal but at least you won’t go to jail for a joint, your career won’t be ruined and since there is no more record, you will still be able to go to the States. Let’s roll a big one up and celebrate! Well, maybe not so fast. There is a shit load more at stake in this whole issue. The War on drugs is far from over. You might think, O.K. leave small time potheads alone (maybe…) and concentrate on coke and heroin and go harsh on that crap and those who sell it, that makes sense. But, it’s not quite the way things look if you dig just a bit below the surface. First of all, I have serious doubts about the sincerity of our government when it comes to decriminalizing marijuana. Is it really to leave people alone or is it simply just a big cash cow in the works? The very reason why the government is pushing for decriminalization is to stop wasting resources on something that is, in itself, not very harmful to society. The logical answer here would be to simply legalize it and leave it alone. Done! But no, here’s just another way to make money for the state. Since it currently isn’t worth the hassle for the cops to bother to arrest people for smoking pot because it costs the system money and time, turning it into a simple operation as to write a ticket and walk away that now makes money for the government, it can easily become an incentive for the cops to ticket as many people as possible. While talking about
‘loosening’ pot laws, the government keeps repeating that it will get tougher on drug manufacturing and trafficking, including the flourishing Canadian marijuana industry. So, smoking pot is not really harmful, but growing and dealing it is? That screams of total nonsense. For someone to smoke it, somebody’s gotta grow it. It’s extremely simple basic economics that everyone learns in grade one. And here is only the beginning of the non-sense fest. Various levels of government have embarked on an irrational campaign against the pot industry, most noticeably those famous indoor grow ops in houses. They argue that these are a threat to all neighbourhoods and harmful to the community in general. There are risks of fires due to bad wiring and hydro bypasses, violence due to grow op rip offs, booby traps to avoid this from happening, structural damages to homes and criminal activity in residential areas. To come to this, they collected some of the most extreme cases of really badly set up grow shows with all the half ass electrical wiring, bad ventilation, floods, improper use of chemicals, etc. Last month, BC Hydro customers received a leaflet entitled ‘Marijuana Grow Ops: A Growing Hazard, along with their monthly bill. The document lists the aforementioned risks as if they were inherent to all grow operations, regardless of the skills of the operator. In order to find out more about where the hell they took the information to come up with that scare tactic leaflet, I went and check the RCMP’s web site (www.rcmp.ca/crimint/ cultivation_e.htm) in order to find some hard facts and statistics to back this up. All I could find were mostly vague estimates, assumptions and only two instances of explo-
sions, a couple examples of booby traps, nothing about fires due to bad wiring, nothing about murders in grow houses, and nothing about those terrible murderous molds that no one except some cops high on donuts ever come across. In Richmond BC, the RCMP reported one murder last September as well as a few home invasions. Hardly an epidemic. We can assume that some fires, home invasions and beatings might occur. But that seems pretty limited when you compare with the estimate that 15 000 to 20 000 grow
ops are located in Greater Vancouver alone and that Canada’s pot production is estimated at 800 tons yearly. That’s a pretty small collateral damage. Also, from my personal experience, most people that are serious and become successful in this industry know what the hell they are doing and are skilled or know and employ skilled people to help in the set up and production processes. Who the hell would want their crop to go up in fire if they’re serious about it? As for the clueless growers who jump on the bandwagon thinking that it is easy money, well, they usually don’t last long ‘cause even if they make it to harvest without burning the house down, their pot will most likely suck so bad that it won’t be sellable. What also transpires from the RCMP documents is that the Canadian marijuana industry is described many, many times as being extremely successful, an economic success story worthy of the Fraser Institute’s wildest dreams. There is a pretty blatant omission though, they forget (purposely, I believe) that the various sectors of an economy are interrelated and that all the money generated through this fast growing industry ends up in other areas. People turning a profit growing pot don’t bury all that money under their pillow; they buy stuff, anything from groceries to cars to toys or even to property. Isn’t that healthy for the economy in general? I would be surprised if we could find out how much the pot industry supports BC’s economy, especially in East Vancouver and BC’s Interior. I know of some very successful business ventures that were kick started with the support of pot money and are now legit tax paying, job creating organizations. How many students paid off their tuition fees with pot profits? How many
parents offer their kids better education because they can afford it thanks to the grow show in the spare bedroom? Another aspect of this leaflet, and the most scary one, is the part about spotting a grow op and ratting it out to the authorities. That is outright Orwellian / Hitlerian / Stalinian worrisome tactics that are unfortunately increasingly used by our governments. This creates a culture of paranoia and mistrust in communities and promotes the degradation of the social fabric. I believe this is way more dangerous for the community than the grow ops themselves. On the other
Minister, Paul Martin, will be even worse. The government must crack down as hard as possible, we must crack down period.” All this will cause is more harm and violence in the industry and possibly increased pot prices due to a potential reduction in supply. This will also make it impossible for independent people to partake in the industry, leaving it only to organized crime that are capable, unlike mom and pop operations, of staying in business even with more operations being dismantled. Once again, our elected officials don’t get it, or they don’t want to get it.
..the part about spotting a grow op and ratting it out to the authorities....This creates a culture of paranoia and mistrust in communities and promotes the degradation of the social fabric. I believe this is way more dangerous for the community than the grow ops themselves. hand, this list of tips to detect a show can be usefully turned around as a list of tips to growers not to get spotted. I’ve already warned a couple acquaintances that their shows presented some of the listed symptoms and they are currently redressing their situations. I command anyone who values freedom and common sense to do the same. No, it doesn’t appear that the situation will improve much. I think it might even get worse. This marijuana law ‘loosening’ smells more like just another typical lie from our government, a typical scam. Pot remains illegal and the cops are told to be more vigilant. Does this mean ticketing as many people as possible? As the justice minister, Mr. Cauchon, stated recently, “we are going to be stronger in law enforcement…. And our future Prime
People have been saying for decades that pot isn’t that bad and should be legalized or better, just left alone. The War on Drugs is a dismal failure on absolutely every front. Unfortunately, our governments won’t take their heads out of the sand and the war continues. (P.S. In Australia, where small possession was decriminalized, the courts have been more clogged than before, due to the large amount of unpaid fines. So here’s a tip, if you get ticketed, don’t pay it. Wait and go to court. This will completely defeat the purpose that the government is hoping to achieve and will show them that we don’t take scams like this one. Keep growing it, keep smoking it and screw them!)
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8
The hardest workin’ man in (Vancouver) showbiz
Eddie Big Beers I read somewhere once that it’s women, rather than men who excel at multitasking. Well, whoever said that obviously hasn’t met my pal Eddie Big Beers. He has been a supporter of and a contributor to the Vancouver live music scene for the past decade and currently plays drums in no less than 4 bands: The Excessives, The Gung Hos, The Denim Demons (Turbonegro covers!) and being a landed immigrant from Scotland, The Real McKenzies. I caught up with him mere hours before The Real McKenzies split to Europe in support of their latest album “Oot & Aboot”. CC: Do you get all discombobulated playing 2 shows in one night with 2 different bands at 2 different venues? (The Gung Hos opened for The Makers then The Excessives headlined at The Cobalt on May 17th) EBB: Well… that was a misunderstanding between Jono [Gung-Hos and Excessives geetarist] and Roche [Gung Hos singer], booking us [both
bands] the same night. There’s not much I can do about it, but I would rather just concentrate on one show, and chill, drink and hang out but y’know… y’gotta do it.
gonna drink lots!
CC: How does it feel to actually be making money doing what you wanna do?
EBB: Aw, well I heard there were crowds of 35, 000 ‘cuz we played a lot of festivals. The Deconstruction Tour, we were playing with NOFX, TSOL, Strung Out, etc. for like 10 days with about 20,000 people. Y’know, we play a lot of festivals with BIG crowds.
EBB: Well… it’s not a lot of money, but it’s cool traveling around and meeting people and shit. That’s what I like about it. I pay a little bit to travel to countries where it would cost the average person thousands of dollars— that’s a no-brainer. Plus, playing music is the best thing-THE ROCK!!! CC: Where in Europe are The Real McKenzies going on this tour? EBB: Pretty much fuckin’ everywhere really. Sweeden, Norway, England, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy and the Czech Republic. CC: Is it a big party every night? EBB: Yeah, pretty much. A lot of drinkin’, a lot goin’ on. What else is there to do? I’m in a rock band… I’ll drink. I’m gonna drink. I’m
GHB: T h e N e x t b i g t h i n g ?
If you’re a guy and you don’t think you have to worry about getting date raped, people have also been known to pee their pants while gholed....
Y
ou may be fat or ugly and consequently the opposite sex finds you repulsive. There may be a war going on that you don’t want. You may be broke, unemployed and have bill collectors calling everyday asking you to repay your student loans as the interest keeps accumulating. You may have a case of the flu and can’t help but wonder if it’s SARS. Your dog could have a malignant brain tumor that’s quickly spreading to the rest of it’s body and because you’re broke you can’t afford to treat it or put it down so all you can do is watch it suffer and try to think of a way to euthenize poor Sir Barks-A-Lot. You would stick it in a box, put the box behind your piece-of-shitwith-wheels car and stick the tail pipe through a small hole in the box and rev the engine until it dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, but your ass is so broke you can’t even
afford to put gas in your car. You’d kill yourself to end your miserable pathetic existence but you know that you’re such a fucking loser you’d probably screw that up too. Really now, are there any bigger losers in society than those who fail horribly at life then fail when they try to kill themselves? At least the people who successfully kill themselves can rest in peace knowing that they accomplished one thing. Suffice to say, life can be depressing sometimes. When life gets me down there’s really only one solution, gamma hydroxybutyrate. A/k/a GHB. GHB is one of the greatest drugs ever invented. It makes you
feel like a million bucks. You can do this stuff at a club as horrible as the Roxy, have a blast and dance your ass off to that lame cover band they have that always plays “Love Shack” by the B52’s. Christ, do this stuff alone in your crappy east van apartment and you’ll have a blast and won’t feel like a pathetic loser who’s doing drugs by yourself in your crappy East Van apartment. If you’ve never tried it, the effects of GHB are comparable to those of alcohol. In many ways it’s superior to alcohol. Think of GHB as being similar to an MP3. In the same way that an MP3 is a more efficient means of listening to music, G is a more efficient way of getting trashed. An MP3 takes up less space and pretty much relays the same information to you. Drinking a water bottle capful of GHB is like drinking a 6 pack of beer, except you don’t get that bloated feeling that comes along with drinking. Now please take a moment to digest my clever analogy before reading the next paragraph. The high only lasts an hour and a half and you’ll feel completely normal 3 hours after you dosed. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a GHB hangover so I imagine they’re quite rare. You’ll also wake up with more money in your wallet if you choose GHB over booze. Which brings me to another one of the biggest selling factors of GHB for me: it’s dirt-cheap. A drink with tip at a club costs about $6-8. By the time you’ve gotten drunk enough to equal what a capful of decent GHB will do to you, you’ve probably already spent close to $50. Some say money can’t buy you happiness. I’d say that’s debatable as G only costs a couple dollars a dose (if
by Casey Cougar
you buy in bulk, it costs pennies a dose) and doing it will make you feel pretty damn good. Why is a drug that’s so rad so cheap? Mainly because it’s easy to make. Someone with second year chemistry knowledge has the skills to produce an endless supply of GHB. There are a lot of druggie Chemistry students from UBC making and selling GHB so I highly recommend keeping in touch with the people who were good at science in highschool. It was one of the smartest things I ever did. Another factor that contributes to the cheapness of G is that GBL (gamma butyrlactone), the key ingredient along with lye to make GHB, is readily available to buy. Recently, legislation has made GBL more difficult to purchase, which has lead to an increase in cost for GHB... but it’s still dirt-cheap. It isn’t just better than booze; it’s also better than a lot of the club drugs that you junkies are doing. If you don’t have a good hookup, drugs like ecstasy are expensive, the effects last too long and if you’re getting shitty e, the come down can be brutal. There is no worse feeling when it’s 6am and you want to go to sleep but the amphetamines in your system won’t let you. And now, so we can print this article without fear of legal action or angry letters, I’ll talk about the disastrous and potentially life threatening side effects associated with doing GHB. This drug has a scary stigma around it for a couple reasons. Firstly, if you’re buying it in liquid form from a stranger, it’s impossible to tell the concentration of it. A gram of GHB powder can be dissolved in a milliliter of water. So, if you’re a big fucking idiot and buying your GHB from a total stranger, at least test it out in your own home before doing it in public. Secondly, though
CC: What is the biggest show you played on the last Euro tour [with the Mckenzies]?
CC: So why do you think bands like The Real McKenzies are appreciated so much more in Europe? EBB: I don’ know the reason…over in Europe they just genuinely love punk rock more then here. It’s weird, they just generally are diehard fans of punk rock and they all go see bands. live music is what they do. They really appreciate music there; it’s the way it is, man. They like their punk rock. CC: We’ll miss you while you’re gone, Eddie Big Beers! EBB: I know!!!
by Michael Mann GHB will make you feel like you look better, it won’t actually make you look better. People on GHB are some of the ugliest people on the face of the planet. If someone’s been doing it for too long they look like people who died from the Joker’s killer laughing gas from the first Batman movie. While GHB will make you look uglier than normal, it can also make you extremely horny and less inhibited. This is a bad combination. If you go to a club and see seemingly heterosexual males dry humping each others legs... chances are they’re either really bad drunks or they’re on GHB. So, and I know you won’t remember this if you’re on G, but I’ll say it anyways, if you’ve been doing a lot of GHB, don’t attempt to pick up members of the same sex as you will scar them for life. Another shortcoming of GHB is you can’t drink while on it. Mixing booze and G is a major no no. Everyone knows that if you do too much GHB or mix alcohol with it, you can lapse into a temporary unrousable unconscious state known as a g-hole. If you have a limited vocabulary, “unrousable, unconscious state” is euphemism for a coma. If you never passed grade 10 English and don’t know what the words euphemism or coma mean, I’d tell you to kill yourself but you’re probably one of those pathetic losers I discussed earlier in this article that’d screw that up... so please stick with huffing gas and don’t try GHB because you’ll make responsible drug users look bad when you end up on page 3 of the Province. GHB is not a drug for the undisciplined. If you don’t wait a couple hours between doses you might ghole. Nothing is worse than when your friend g-holes and you have to try to convince the bouncers to let your idiot friend stay in the club. Paramedics may get called and you may get your stomach pumped. People have also
been date raped while g-holed though I think GHB is commonly falsely labeled as the date rape drug. Sure there are cases where people have had GHB slipped into their drinks and bad things have happened, but no self respecting serial date rapist uses GHB. Regardless, never leave your drink unattended and don’t let strangers buy you drinks unless you watch the bartender pour it for you. But this is all just common sense. If you’re a guy and you don’t think you have to worry about getting date raped, keep in mind people have also been known to pee their pants while g-holed. If the prospect of getting date raped or peeing your pants in public doesn’t scare, maybe the prospect of dying will, because if you do way too much G you could get GHB poisoning which can be fatal. If your friend gholes and you have to babysit them for the rest of the evening there are a variety of fun things you can do them. You can draw on their face with a felt marker but that’s kind of played out. My personal favourite is to take their pants off and put their underwear on backwards then put their pants back on. When they wake up the next day tell them that they passed out and you threw them in a cab and gave the cabdriver instructions on how to get them home. Doing this will teach them a valuable lesson and ensure that they don’t g-hole and ruin your evening ever again. Some say that doing drugs to escape your shitty life is a bad. I call all these people hypocrites. We all do things to make our shitty lives better be it drinking, smoking, eating or humping. Let me state that I’m not encouraging you to do GHB... but it’s fun and it’s cheap so you should all try it.
9
Rock Rant
I
was watching The Fifth Wheel the other night, which is a Blind Date knock-off— though crass and witless in comparison. Knowing that they could never find anybody as charismatic as Roger Lodge to present their program, the producers of Third Wheel leave the hosting to a disembodied voice. It’s one of those catalogue-bought voices like the DJ at the Drake uses. Slick. He’s a slick mother, but basically well-heeled and on his way up, I’d say. The hook with Fifth Wheel is that you can be rejected up to three times in a single episode.
by Adrian Mack
everybody has been running about for the last couple of years screaming “Stooges! MC5!” at the top of their lungs, myself included, and it’s leaked away from us and right into every frat boy’s living room. What a blow…my philosophy, my belief-system, my logic, my ONTOLOGY, everything has jumped the shark. (And so has Blind Date, to be honest). What next? Reunion concerts? You bet! Reunion concerts by The Stooges and the MC5, to be specific, about a week apart from each other. That’s no mean feat for the 5 as a few of ‘em are quite dead by now,
”Shania in a Ramones T-shirt? Check! Celine covering AC/DC? Check! Ozzy by Royal Command? Check! Check! Check! The world is losing definition” Ridiculous. One single televised humiliation is all it takes to achieve your goal of ruining a person’s life. Anything more will harden the victim into a condition of cynical indifference and so the effect is lost. I experience public disgrace and self-abasement on a daily basis and look at me…I’m OK! Anyway, this asshole announcer who probably aspires to nothing higher than lunch with Danny Bonaduce’s agent exhorted us at one point to “kick out the jams.” That’s right. “Kick out the jams.” This he says while we watch a couple of painted-on brochure models with pastel coloured highballs faffing about in breezy white cotton; classic west coast beauties with tight little American balls nested in their jockeys and chin geometry designed to intimidate the enemy. All this in a faux-adobe bar near Santa Monica, the kind of establishment that they reserve for closers, winners, victors – Prime Cut Yankee Bozos, in short. It’s here that they compete for a single fuck from one of the three girls hired to bust them down good. We eavesdrop as the two men take the same approach, each one sidling up to the three models in surreptitious fashion, claiming in turn with unconvincing lugubriousness that they are “clear”, “positive” and “centred” And they might be, if “centred” means you’re a hopeless, self-regarding fanny and you wear a ponytail in the year 2003. Or if you really think you can score with any of these three dead-eyed tit-balls with iron vaginas that were copped from the John Casablanca’s’ “After Dark” catalogue. Bless their stupid little hearts. Nobody won anything (or anybody) on this episode, including us. Because when that Hollywood High wiener with the peelerbar voice said “kick out the jams” I felt a wound opening in my side. It seems that
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but Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson and Michael Davis regrouped around some guests, including Lemmy and the Hellacopters’ Nicke Andersson (filling in for Fred Smith), in London Eng-er-Land – a Valhalla for the ossified punk comeback. Great idea on paper and, apparently, a great idea in the living world too if Mojo is to be believed. I wish I could have gone even if I laughed my ass off at the sheer silliness of hiring Ian Astbury to sing with the Doors. Meanwhile, over in some field in California, the Asheton Bros hooked up with Iggy and Mike Watt (on bass) to bring to full circle a thing that started as a straight line. I have misgivings about all of this but I also talk to myself in a child’s voice when I’m alone and I’m usually alone. I tend not to leave the house and when I do, I usually forget to wear pants. Quite often I’ll put on some old crackerjack musical, like “Jesus Christ Superstar”, get nice and baked, strip down to my underwears and sing the whole thing from start to finish. Down the phone. To my Mom. And then I say to her, ”Shania in a Ramones Tshirt? Check! Celine covering AC/DC? Check! Ozzy by Royal Command? Check! Check! Check! The world is losing definition” Then we laugh about how, back in the day, I divided the family by renouncing Streisand, just after the “Superman” album – I wasn’t comfortable with the direction she was taking. Too stentorian and self-important for me. Now she’s handing out Oscars to Eminem while Joe Strummer gets a heroes send-off on the Grammies and Billy Joel slides from housewives choice to gnawing at the invisible bugs on his leg in a 4’ x 6’ room that’s guarded by people with names like “Tiny” and “Muscles”. And mom says, “yeah, it’s all upside down these days”
by Billy Hopeless influences?
Di’Anno circa 1980
Well, it’s always a big (and nice) thing to be told that you’re an influence, but I always just did what I did and never tried to be influential to anyone. When I was young, there were many influences back in those days: Bon Scott and Stevie Marriot in the early years… then mostly punk in the years to come. Now, from you’re time back in Iron Maiden to the present with you leading The Killers, you’ve always come across as more of a punk to me than a metal head, both in appearance and in your lyrical content. Any opinion? Well, that’s right. As I came from punk and just kind of managed to stumble into the metal thing at the right time, really. The truth is that I was a punk that just happened to be able to sing in a sort of a metal style that didn’t really sound too much like the mainstream metal singers of those early days. To be totally honest, I thought by getting into a metal band, I’d get more chances of shagging loads of groupies… and that’s what prompted me to give Maiden a try in the first place... and it definitely worked.
Up The Irons! Here Paul Di’anno Running Free! Sorry I wasn’t in the last issue, but I think I already covered the topic of sex in my interview with Blag of the dwarves. Besides, after the Handsome Dick Manitoba interview, I had to find someone really cool to keep this ball of shit rolling and you heathens reading! Now, I like Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind alright, but when it comes to Iron Maiden, there’s no touching the first two albums and the reason why I still play these albums on a regular basis is the voice and lyrical genius of the wrath child known as Paul Di’anno. I was thinking about trying to get a David Lee Roth interview, but as soon as I saw that Paul Di’anno was coming to town with his band The Killers, I knew who I wanted to speak to and if you don’t agree, all I’ve got to say is Billy Hopeless can’t be stopped! Billy Hopeless can’t be fought! UP THE IRONS HERE PAUL DI’ANNO RUNNING FREE!
I know you probably hear this a lot, and it most likely comes off as stupid (hey, the shoe fits so I’ll wear it) but I have to tell you this is an honour as you have always been one of my major influences as an vocalist/lyricist/songwriter. How does it feel to be influential and who where/are your musical
Di’Anno with The Killers
I see not only do you have a new CD on Muck Records here in Canada, but you’ve also written an autobiography entitled The Beast. Tell us a little about the book and will you have copies for sale at the show at Studebakers?
I’ll bring you a care package / answer incorrectly and I’ll leave you to your tofu and yoga with respect but no sense of comradeship. I have tried cleaning up my act, but we have a saying in the east end of London “You can’t polish a turd.” That kind of sums up my situation, really. No matter how hard I try: meditation, flower arranging, painting pictures of little dead birds, helping old ladies to cross the road, wiping my arse after taking a shit... I have tried all these nice things and I must be honest and say I feel happier when I am: Fucking some bird up the shitter, caving in some cunts face for staring at me too much, pissing in the vicars tea, offering round my sandwiches after lacing them with my pubic hairs or farting (especially after a strong curry) in church and pretending it wasn’t me. I’m just a low life, bullock-talking twat, who happens to be able to sing. I’ve always been trouble and always will be trouble and nothing can change that, unfortunately. How do you feel about touring Canada? C’mon, I know from experience that downtown Oshawa ain’t exactly Babylon on a Saturday night, but it ain’t all bad, right? You pay and I’ll play... that’s my motto. Plus, it keeps me off the streets… So, speaking of touring, I just saw the promo of the bands current line-up and it looks like a good bunch! Tell us about the current Killers. Anyone we might know or recognize? The only original member is Cliff Evans, who has been the guitarist of Killers for the past 12 years. The rest of the guys are the new ones on the block. My manager Lea Hart, who’s my oldest mate and drinking partner, will be accompanying me too, just to double check that I get in as much trouble as possible…. From looking at the tour schedule on your website, it’s obvious you’re a road dog and that the fire is burning inside you stronger than ever. What has kept you moving and singing after all these years?
Money and Pussy are two reasons I guess, as you’ve got to eat and fuck. Oh, and I rather enjoy a night out here and there. Basically, I still love getting in front of the people that helped get me onto the stage in the first place, so touring is kind of in my blood. The best buzz I can get is out of a great audience shouting out your name and there’s nothing else to replace that feeling. I really like the skull you’re using for a backdrop on this tour. You can never go wrong with a skull in my books, who designed it? Bob Muck, my promoter and head of Muck Records, got someone to put the skull design together and I guess he’s done a great job. He’s also got quite a few live surprises coming up for people too… as he is one crazy muther. Ok, here’s the deep intellectual typical interview question I hate to ask but I just want to hear your opinion. What do you think of the current state of music? Who do you like and who do you think should have a copy of Rolling Stone rammed up their ass? I like a lot of things currently and semi-currently including Sepultura, Machinehead, Linkin Park, System of a Down and lots more, but I think all boy bands should be made to be fucked up the arse by coke sniffing donkey’s and then be given blow jobs by hungry alligators. And finally, as one of your biggest fans and supporters here in Vancouver, I would like to thank you for this interview and for finally coming to Vancouver. Do you have any words for the people of The Nerve to draw them closer and hold them at bay until your appearance? Just strap in to you safety belts and say your prayers coz I am cumming... sorry I meant coming! www.pauldianno.com
Yeah, I put a fun CD together of my “hobby” punk band and it came out on Muck Records… just for a laugh and not to be taken too seriously in any way. Also, my autobiography The Beast was released last June 2002, and has done pretty well so far and still seems to be selling a fair amount of units mostly online. The book was a way of getting a lot of shit out of my system and off my chest in the most honest way possible. It was my manager Lea Hart, former vocalist for Fastway, and Dale Webb, the co-author, that suggested the book and I said I’d only do it if it was in a “Non Rock ‘n’ Roll” style… I didn’t want it to be another one of those shit rock ‘n’ roll books that are all the same. You know what I mean like the rest of those self-congratulating bullshit “I love myself” rock biographies that all basically tell the same old fucking story. I knew the book would shock a lot of people due to its frankness, but that’s better than just giving everyone another boring rock ‘n’ roll story featuring the same old crap that they are used to reading from such books. After all, who really wants to read a load of bollocks from some cunt about what some songs really meant to the actual writers etc. I thought, fuck it, it’s time that someone stands up and gives people some truth... even if it shocks ‘em. That’s why I even let former band mates, managers and generally anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to work with me over the years, have their say in the final chapter of the book without me overseeing their comments. It’s not a pretty book. It talks about violence (obviously drugs and groupies) shitting myself on a regular basis, being in prison, booze, more violence, beating the shit out of any poor fucker and generally being a total wanker and bastard for many years. I guess I have changed a bit… calmed down now, due to getting older…and now I am just a cute little lamb... with a fucking great big fucking devil waiting to get out of my arse and fuck the bullocks off of any unsuspecting fucker who happens to be there. Alright, now a lot of the musicians I’ve looked up to have cleaned up there act to the point of them jumping on the old “clean up my life” wagon and are into health and exercise. How about you? Answer correctly and
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Roberts and C.C. after the show
Sam Rober ts SR: No, never! Not with her-no way!
SR: I think that’s great!
CC: How are you gonna deal when Winona Rider wants to go out with you?
CC: For some reason you seem to attract all kinds of people who are into all kinds of music plus they come from all racial backgrounds.
SR: I can deal with Winona no problem. I fell outta love with her during Beetlegeuse. CC: Really?? Before Heathers? SR: Is it? I liked her during Heathers, but fell outta love with her when she did “Mermaids” with Cher.
A
CC: Is that because you’re from Montreal?
CC: When’s your birthday? SR: October 2nd.
CC: Really? Are you Superman??
CC: Ohmigawd, you’re a Libra-so do you feel balanced?
SR: I wish, yeah. Oh, I’m being summoned, time to go. CC: You are my biggest wet dream ever!!!
any closer to being “the next big thing” nor do I wanna be. I just wanna do what I’ve always done-y’know, just getting up there.
Casey Cougar: So, how do you feel about being called “the next big thing?”
SR: I dunno man, maybe Howe and Davie?
SR: No, did you see me on stage tonight? I kept tripping over my feet! Nor does being a Libra help me feel balanced at all.
CC: I heard that you’ve had the same girlfriend for 11 yrs. Don’t you think that’s long enough?
CC: I got into 2 fistfights tonight during your show-whaddya think of that?
Sam Roberts: It’s a load of bullshit. I’m not
SR: Fuckin’ rights, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all night!
SR: No, don’t think so, I think it’s from not wearing what you do on your sleeve all the time, just playing music for the sake of playing music. Hey, you kinda look like Lois Lane!
ll it took was one listen to the Sam Roberts’ song “Brother Down” to get me hooked. Although I do not watch Much Music, I admit seeing that video was a revelation: not only is he fabulously talented, but he’s about the hottest thing around these days.
CC: Where have all the good people gone? (a question posed in his latest video in heavy rotation on Much Music).
by Casey Cougar
SR: Don’t tell me that now, I gotta go sit on a bus for 5 hours!
Casey Cougar turned 30 this past May 8th and she was shocked by how relatively painless it was. So she decided to ask some other 30-something in the local scene...
Did ya freak out when you turned 30? Bryce “Born in ‘69” Dunn Program Director / Host of Third Time’s the Carm on 101.9 CITR.
Trevor The Excessives, Denim Demons
Mike Park Hi-Test, Gung-Hos
“Yeah I totally freaked out at 30 because by 40, it’s too late!”
“No I didn’t freak out ‘cause I didn’t realize there were any numbers after 20!”
“Isn’t everyone 30?”
Steve Chase Fireball Productions
Creepy Simon from The Malcom Young Cult
“No, not as much as I thought I would, I was relieved my 20’s were over!”
“Yeah, totally - my biological clock exploded! I woke up one day and was engaged to three different girls!”
Wendy 13 Fullbore Productions / Cobalt
Adam Payne The Felchers
Sean Law host of “Caught in the Red” on 101.9 CITR
“No, I didn’t freak out, but I will this year because I’m turning 39!”
“No I didn’t freak out (on my 30th birthday) but I did the next day ‘cuz I lost my wallet!”
“No, I didn’t freak out because I achieved timelessness years ago. I’m still 17!”
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Dropkick Murphys
Rustle New Piper from CowTown
By Sarah Rowland
T
raditionally, there hasn’t been a huge demand for punk rock bagpipers in the Musicians Wanted section of the classifieds. Tattied pipers have about as many career opportunities as heavy metal didgeridoo players. That’s why when piper Scruffy Wallace heard that there was a job opening in the Dropkick Murphys last February, he emptied his bank account and headed to Boston for an extensive audition. It couldn’t have been better timing. The 30-year-old had just given up on waiting
for American Idol to dedicate a season searching for the next Celtic pop star. Knowing that his only two chances to make a living with his tartan windbag were joining the Real Mckenzies or DKM, the Calgarian piper had been monitoring both band web sites regularly. Finally, the day came when DKM’s Spicey McHaggis left the Irish sevenpiece to move to England. Wallace emailed his resume to DKM right away. By midMarch he got word that he made the final cut. “It’s still really hard to get my head around,” says Wallace about realizing his lifelong dream. “It’s so surreal.” Although Wallace had never been on the road with a rock band, DKM bassist and second-string vocalist Ken Casey thought Wallace’s experience as a Canadian soldier made him the perfect replacement. “We had tons of people who wanted to play the pipes but he was kind of from a
similar background: held a union job, has been playing for 16 years and had been in the military,” says Casey in a thick Boston accent, calling from his home. “So even though he hadn’t been in a full-time touring band, he was a guy who’s obviously used to living in cramped quarters.” Despite doing time in the army, Wallace isn’t militant about mixing genres. He’s been a fan of kicking traditional Irish folk in the ass with loud rawk since he was thirteen. “Celtic music was the first punk rock,” says Wallace. “It was the first music to really speak of drinking beer and going out and fighting and stuff like that and you know, it’s catchy as hell.” But that’s not the only reason he likes diddling his reeds.
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Dropkick Murphys
...continued
Lagwagon
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hrough an early afternoon all-ages show confusion, I managed to slip backstage and catch Lagwagon frontman Joey Cape in his dressing room before their set May 24th at the Commodore. At the tail end of a 6 week tour promoting the recent release of their 8th studio album Blaze, Joey seemed relatively unphased and in good spirits… the sign of a seasoned road warrior. We talked about the new record, touring Europe vs. America and why the band plays almost exclusively all-ages shows....
Nerve: What can you tell me about this current tour? Joey Cape: We’re in our 6th week and this is our last Canadian show… it’s mostly been a U.S. tour, but we did the route around the south and then up the east coast and, you know, along the way back we played Quebec and Toronto. Now we’re just popping up to Vancouver then we’re going to head home. Nerve: Is there a core group of bands that you’ve been touring with? JC: There is, but this show is an exception because this is some sort of music festival? N: New Music West. JC: Yeah, which, by the way, you may know the answer, are the Flaming Lips playing? N: Yeah, I think they are playing tomorrow night. JC: Shit, anyway, so, yeah, this show is different, the bands playing with us today aren’t on our tour. N: Who’s touring with you then? JC: Well, the funny thing is that our tour just changed, for the last 10 shows of the tour, bands have been different. This band called Hagfish is going to be on it… there’s a number of bands… but, up until yesterday, there was this band called Hagfish and Rufio and another band called Yellowcard… there’ve been so many I’ll probably bore the hell out of you if I started listing them all (laughs). N: What’s been the response to the new record? JC: Oh, it’s been good. We’re pretty psyched, actually, because when you do a new
record, the first tours are always a little bit… people are sort of indifferent to the new songs because they don’t necessarily know them very well yet, um, but this tour has been a bit of an exception to that because when we play the new songs, they seem to go over very well. N: Did you guys do anything different recording this record? Any influences you don’t normal have or allow? JC: Well we, (just then Chris Flippin walks in) Hey! Shut the door! (Chris turns and says: Why the hell are you yelling at me? Meatball left it open.) I’m not yelling at you, I’m yelling at Farm Boy…. (general confusion and yelling ending in a FUCK YOU!) (Joey turns to me and says) Can you can tell it’s the end of the tour? N: Yeah. JC: (turns to the small crowd gathering)
by A.D. MADGRAS September. We’ve got a few festivals and then we’re doing a club tour. Our first show is with Metallica. N: Metallica? How’d that happen? JC: Well, in Europe it’s different. The summers are just full of festivals and we’ve been playing festivals for years with bands like… I mean, we’ve played with Metallica before. We’ve just never shared the same stage with them. N: How do you find touring Europe as opposed to North America? JC: I don’t know. There are things that are better when touring the states, like being a little more in the know of your surrounding… things are more accessible, but we’ve toured long enough in Europe that we are pretty comfortable over there too. In general, I’d say the shows over there are a little bit better, overall, I mean, but there are shows on this continent that are really amazing, especially some of the Canadian shows… N: You find people in Europe know your stuff as well as here? JC: Oh yeah, we’ve been touring there a long time, at least ten years… and we did better in Europe before we starting doing well here. N: Really? JC: Yeah, it took a long time to really get things going here… and over there, we pretty much were doing well right away… but, Canada has always been really good to us too… the states is jus, you know, so vast, it’s harder…. N: How do you feel about playing all-ages shows? JC: We pretty much only play all-ages show. We have a rule. There’s almost no bar shows. We have to count on the fact that the majority of our fans are pretty young… but, they are getting older, as we get older, I think that many of them are over 21 now… I think it’s just a mentality that we got into early on and we never really changed. We just thought it was a good idea. N: Anything else you want people to know? JC: I’m not really too great with the last words… I don’t know, be nice! (laughs).
We’ve got a few festivals and then we’re doing a club tour. Our first show is with Metallica...
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YOU want to do the interview? Someone: Why, what’s going on? JC: I’m doing and interview… TRYING to do an interview…. N: I’m just trying to get some dirt on you guys. That’s about it, really…. JC: Let’s see… dirt… me and Jesse are exlovers. Wait, that would have been better for your sex issue. Um, no, wait, what were we talking about? N: Uh… JC: Right, the new record, if there is anything I can say about this new record? Well, it hasn’t really been long enough to for me to have a proper retrospective… but, if anything, it’s a little more guitar orientated, which is more like our older albums. N: So, no disasters this tour? JC: Um, no, pretty uneventful, I think… no one got SARS in Toronto (laughs)…well, then again, we might have it (laughs). We’ll tell you in a couple of weeks…. N: So, are taking this tour to Europe? JC: Yeah, we’re going in August and
“We tend to get more groupies,” says Wallace, about the perks of piping— not that the happily engaged musician ever indulges in extracurricular activities. “The bagpiper is kind of made out to be almost like a mascot. They [enthusiastic female fans] see the kilt and that’s it. Actually, I think that I have more groupies than guys who’ve been in the band for a longer time just because of the kilt and bagpipes.” DKM only gave Wallace two shows to rehearse for the four-day St. Paddy’s bash at Boston’s Avalon Ballroom, where the hometown boys broke the attendance record set by the Ramones. Playing to 8,000 people is a long way off from the early days of DKM, when they would rehearse in the basement of the neighbourhood barbershop. Since then, the Epitaph band has put out 8 LPs and 13 EPs. The group’s latest album, Blackout, was inspired by some of Woody Guthrie’s unpublished lyrics. When Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, approached DKM about interpreting her father’s song, “Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight”, the Boston punkers were a little uneasy about being able to do the music justice. “We sat down and thought, ‘how would he do it? How would he want it done?’” recalls Casey. “Nora was really cool and said, ‘Hey, do it how you would do it. Don’t try to write music to a song that was written 60 years ago the way the author intended.’ Once we heard that we were like, ‘Let’s maybe do it as different as possible.’ Consequently, it’s one of the heavier songs on the record.” So don’t expect the title track to sound anything like Wilco or Billy Bragg’s alt country interpretation of the prolific poet’s words. “Once we felt like we had free range, we thought let’s just kind of mix it up as much as possible,” says Casey. Other standouts on the CD include; a traditional cover of “Worker’s Song”, an ode to the plight of organized labour, and “World Full of Hate”, which sounds like the Celtic version of Green Day’s “Time of Your Life”. “The Dirty Glass” is a duet about a soured relationship. Although musically, the tune is far more of a hoedown than “Fairytale in New York”, lyrically it has a lot similarities. For example, when guest singer, Stephanie Dougherty, bellows, “You weren’t the first to court me mister/ you won’t be the last.” To which Casey replies, “Oh, sure I wasn’t honey, I know all about your past.” The rest of the album combines accessible SoCal pop punk melody and East Coast blue-collar warrior vox with healthy shots of whiskey soaked Celtic accordion and, of course, bagpipes. Unfortunately, Wallace didn’t make the roster until after Blackout was recorded. But his piping prowess can be heard on the band’s new ten-inch, covering AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to Top”, or live when DKM passes through Vancouver with the 2003 Vans Warped tour at the Plaza of Nations Friday. July 4. For now, Wallace is more concerned about getting through his first Canadian date Wednesday July 2, which happens to be in his hometown at the Race City Speedway. He’s a little nervous and with good reason. If the DKM gig doesn’t work out, he’ll have to wait another 16 years for another job opening.
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Bad Religion Closet Monster Casualties Commodore Ballroom May 4, 2003
We arrived late, of course, and completely missed Closet Monster. I hear one of the guys used to play for Avril Lavigne, so how good could they be? I’ll risk saying that they sucked, and stoop to what the Circle Jerks refer to as “defamation innuendo”. The Casualties were already playing when I took my place on the sparsely occupied dance floor. The New Yorkers looked very flash with their punk hairdos and bullet belts. Man, I wish we had known about Knox gelatin in the 80’s. The Casualties wear their allegiance to the likes of the Exploited and GBH on their studded sleeves, employing much the same noisy attack. Each song is a predictable, all-out assault, fronted by a sweaty, spiky-headed punk with middle finger permanently affixed in the rigid position. No ballads for these boys. They
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s e ir
LiveWirePalooza Finals: Goat’s Blood Wreckin Crew The Hand HoneyBox Married to Music Esthers Void May 15 @ the Pic
slammed out the tunes like a welloiled machine, and the only thing that kept me in 2003 was the lack of spitting from their Quebecois, squeegee punk fans. C’mon guys, can’t you muster up a little sticky rain? I’m sure the Casualties would enjoy being showered with loogies, just like their anti-heroes back in the day. During the break, a guy asked me if I was still on the wagon. I told him that if Brett Gurewitz and me were still with the liquor and drugs, there wouldn’t be enough left for anyone else. He thanked me for my thoughtfulness. Bad Religion hit the stage looking like they had come straight from a backyard bar-bque. Greg Graffin, wearing a pair of chequed leisure pants stolen from his grandfather, accused us of being nationalist (several times) before launching into a string of BR hits spanning several decades. The crowd, who were clearly there for Bad Religion, responded enthusiastically, and one fool chucked ice cubes until Jay Bentley, the bass player, offered to put down his guitar and do a little ass-kicking. I’m glad to see some traditions haven’t changed, and if a punk musician can’t beat on an idiot in the crowd then this fucked-up world is even worse shape than I suspected. I’ve never been a huge Bad Religion fan, but I’ll admit the boys know their stuff, and despite just a little too much in between song banter, they delivered a solid and entertaining set. Guitarist Brian Baker has put on a few pounds since stepping on my arm as a member of Minor Threat, but his licks are sharper than ever. Graffin and the rest of the boys, excluding the newly-rehabilitated Gurewitz, who was conspicuous in his absence, are losing a few follicles but not their sense of humour, with Bentley asking the mostly teen and early twenties crowd if they remembered a show BR had played at the Commodore in the 80’s. They closed the show with “21st Century Digital Boy” and “Sorrow”, leaving very few people to wonder if the forty dollar admission fee might have been put to better use on a pair of sunglasses or a half gram of blow. Chris Walter
Married to Music may have only been stuck in the opening slot tonight, but they by far stole the show. I’m going to rant and rave about how fucking wicked these guys are until the whole goddamned world realizes it and shows their appreciation by showing up, buying their cds and throwing panties on stage. They needed shackles for lead man, Byron Slack, as he couldn’t keep himself on stage, constantly jumping off and harassing poor, weak bladdered concert goers on the way to the bathroom or kissing a pretty lady (his girlfriend?). I like an interactive band. The Hand play angry music. They seem so angsty and troubled, but yet so youthful and clean cut. Why were these youngsters so angry at the world that they have to play such heavy, screamy music? Possibly because they’re in the running for the World’s Ugliest Band award? Maybe. I don’t know. They could win…. Goat’s Blood. What do you think of when you hear the words “Goat’s Blood”? I think skulls, blood, and smelly, disease ridden Cobalt style metal. Soundwise, they are essentially Death Metal, without the death. These guys didn’t necessarily get their headlining spot because they’re better than the other bands by any means, just so much louder. After the fucking wicked performance of Married to Music, louder seemed their only weapon against better. My weak country boy ears rang for days…. Cowboy TexAss
Gross Misconduct Sind Repulveriser Dizzy’s Nanaimo B.C.
SideSixtySeven Insipid May 17 @ Studebakers
Three loooong months and over a hundred and twenty bands vying for the cash and prizes and seminal fame found in the winning spot of the LiveWire contest came to an end. Finally. True, this festival brought many good, yet relatively unheard of bands to the stage, but it also brought many bands that no one should ever have to hear or see out of their caves, bands that should (and unless they won, would still probably) live out their entire careers at Studebakers... and some of those bands even somehow managed to make it past the first round. Two of those bands are HoneyBox and Wreckin Crew. Maybe I’m a bit jaded, but after all I’d seen prior to this night, I’d already picked my winner. By the time Honeybox plugged in, I’d already seen enough. These guys looked and dressed like the only reason they formed a band was to help them get laid and it wasn’t working. They play sappy, drippy poppy rock songs and after seeing high energy bands like Inspid and SideSixtySeven, there was just no forgiving such a pathetic performance by a ‘finalist’ band. You can only thrash so hard on an acoustic guitar while the tambourine guy jumps around trying to rock out but it just didn’t work and neither did the homeboy Surrey hard rock of Wreckin’ Crew. C’mon, who’s gonna be the new CFOX band here? Everyone seemed to think it was gonna be SideSixtySeven, with their entourage of young girls and screaming fans, their high energy punk shows, everyone behind them. Hell, I got disqualified from judging one night at the Brickyard cuz I voted against them for fucks sakes. But in the end, the youthful, innovative and incredibly talented boys in Inspid took the thousand buck cash prize and all the perks that come with the LiveWire trophy, radio guest spots and opening slots for some undisclosed big bands and so forth. It was an incredible moment, watching their barely legal singer (and only legal member of the band), Joel, up on stage getting awarded, drunk off his little ass. These guys really deserved it. They put on the most incredible shows each time they played, hard, heavy with elements of funk and ska and metal. Pure talent. ongratulations to them and thank god this thing is over. Cowboy TexAss
Repulveriser started the show. Their brand of three piece death thrilled this Vancouver boy. The guy on the guitar growled in that Van Island style some of us are familiar with and the bassist and drummer added shrieks/screams. Their occasional solos sure took me home. When Sind took the stage featuring Abuses’s Big Pimp on vocals and Insipid frontman Joel doin’ a wee bit Sinned on lead/rhythm guitar, I was of a victory dance at Studebakers ready to shred/mosh. Sind’s two guitarists satisfied my sonic cravings with drumming that left us bereaved. Sind is also death metal, somewhat in the vein of Hurt; basically, two guitarists with solos. Gross Misconduct was either a four or five piece. I’d never heard them before but they were tight death. I got more into the first two bands. Repulveriser and Sind kicked ass and Gross Misconduct basically stirred up the rubble that the first two band’s brutal mayhem had left behind. Anonymous
M e e t n a a k ce S
Putting the Slam in Slam City Jam I
t was a great weekend, but if you had any part of Slam City Jam then you already knew that. If you didn’t have any part in it then you missed out. Slam 10 was truly a celebration of what makes skateboarding great. The people, the parties and Renee Renee were integral to making this year’s event go off. The parties started on Thursday afternoon when Ultimate Distribution threw its annual BBQ at the Hastings Bowl. Free food and drink were combined with some excellent local and international skaters flowing around the bowl. The session was casual and relaxed which lead to some fun speed lines and long snakes through the entire bowl. I went inside the Coliseum to check out the street course, but I was immediately shocked by the vert ramp. It was the hugest ramp I had ever seen! This was the Tony Hawk Boom Boom Huck Jam ramp. There was a ten-foot section of wall missing. The coping crossed over it but there was no ramp underneath this bridge of death. I was stunned by the size of the gap. The street course was large in area, but small in height. There was no booter ramp or huge quarterpipes. This set up would allow the tech skaters to shine. If you want to see the course check out the pics
on slamcityjam.com That night called for a little Punk Rock Bingo at the newly renovated Cobalt. When I arrived at the Cobalt, I was greeted by a sign that said, “Go to the Astoria.” At the Astoria, I talked to Wendy and she mentioned that there were still a couple of inspectors that still needed to give them the stamp of approval before they could open up. This must have been luck for me because I won a pitcher of beer for the first time in my PRB history. The Cobalt has since reopened in its original location. Friday was a slow starter, but I didn’t miss much of the Hastings Legend bowl jam. The skaters included Steve Cabalero, Mike Mcgill, Andy Macdonald, Omar Hassan and many more. Everyone saw an over-under line on the vert hip, Cab went low and Andy flew five feet above him. Awesome!! Then Renee Renee started handing out money. He would call a trick and the first person to do it would get paid. Andy Macdonald killed it with a huge kickflip frontside grab from the six-foot hip all the way to the shallow four-foot. He got paid. If Renee Renee saw something cool the person would get paid. Six-year-old Mithcy from Seattle dropped into the vert bowl. He got paid. Then R.R.
stood at the edge of the bowl and handed out money to any one who could grind the lip, grab the money out of his hand and ride away clean. If you fell you gave the money back. Not very many people were falling. Then Mr. R.R. laid on top of the vert hip and held out fifty dollar bills to any one who could air over, grab the money, and roll away. This was Ben Krahn’s payday. I think he did it four times in a row. The Last Man Standing contest ended the day. $1000 U.S. went to whoever was the last man/woman skating at the end. The hardest part about this is the start. Anyone who wants to can drop in, but everyone drops at the same time. It was like a demolition derby with skaters. Friday night was the big ska show at Unit 20. The Planet Smashers came to town with Big D and the Kids Table and locals Los Furios and the skankin’ was good. The Smashers lit up the stage with classics like “Pee in the Elevator” to new songs off their latest release. It was such a good time that I didn’t want it to end, but after the second encore the lights came on and I came down. Saturday was supposed to be the qualifying for Vert and Street. I wouldn’t know anything about that, though. I spent most of the day skating and drinking with Bobcat and Ben Butler. Bobcat runs a website called Sleestak.net, check it out for the best, unbiased opinions on skateparks in the Pacific Northwest. Their crew had managed to cross the border with copious amounts of low alcohol content, American brewed, Pabst Blue Ribbon. Surprisingly, though, pretty good beer. That evening was dedicated to terrorizing the downtown eastside. We started out at the glamourous Cambie Hostel. Money was low so we backpacked some beer and whiskey for travel between bars. This was a good idea considering we ended up stopping at the Cractpipe, talking trash and watching the Satori demo. The Cractpipe guys really shined this weekend by providing an excellent environment for skaters to hangout away from the contest. They opened their doors to skaters from everywhere. We left the pipe and headed on down to the Astoria because the S.T.R.E.E.T.S. were playing. Skating Totally Rules and Everything Else Totally Sucks wrecked shop at the Astoria. I think. My memory gets pretty hazy after meeting up with Nate Sherwood outside of Pat’s Pub. Nate, if you read this, you were fucking hilarious! Then I drank a beer, took a pull on the whisky and your guess is as good as mine what the fuck happened after that.
Sunday was the Finals for both Vert and Street. The level of skateboarding completely blew me away. Rick McRank got second, doing tricks that were thought of as impossible less than ten years ago. Why only second? Because the wonder kid Ryan Scheckler blew everybody’s mind. This thirteen year old ripped huge kickflips, feebles, and backside flips. He never fell. I just hope this child doesn’t inspire hockey moms everywhere to bank their futures on professional skateboarding. Imagine hockey dads fighting because their kid landed a bigger kickflip at the Peewee finals. Kill me if this happens. The Vert finals were lacking some of the usual rippers, but this gave guys like Jake Brown time to show some shit. Jake threw down a sick tailgrab 720. Chris Gentry tossed himself through some frontside rodoe 5’s. Newcomer Shaun White grabbed second in his first professional contest. This sixteen year old has already been a pro snowboarder for years. Now he has turned his focus on skateboarding. Reminds me of Noah Salasnek. Sandro Dias put on the winning run with head high 540 to body jar and a 540 over the huge gap. With the contest over, it seemed to be time for the weekend to come to an end. Leave it up to Skull Skates to put on a 25th anniversary party at the Atrium Inn. The ownership just changed at the Atrium and the new owners are closing the bar. The managers had stopped stocking the bar in anticipation. During the party, the selection got smaller and smaller. No Canadian, then no Kokanee, etc. Eventually the place was actually drank out of beer. All the bottles were gone and nothing on tap. This is when the Smirnoff Ice came out. I saw Chris Perry celebrating the end of his weekend with three bottles and a huge smile. There was talk of flats of beer in a hotel room and a different last man standing contest. We head-
ed down to the Cractpipe first. Now with all the skating that had gone on you’d think that no one would be on the ramp. Not so, Alex Gavin was in there ripping around until the wee hours of the morning. Then the flat bottom session got underway. I tried all of my drunkest tricks, but couldn’t stick more than a step off shuv-it. The booze eventually ran out and it was time for the last man standing. The hotel scene was kinda dead. There were no flats of beer but plenty of people standing. Later to that. Time to call it… Slam 10, over and out. I want to thank everyone who makes this event happen: the volunteers, the organizers and the skaters. Dennis Regan Pics: Dennis Regan
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BLACK RICE What group or musician does your band never want to be compared to musically? Nickelback. No wait, Theory of Deadman. Nothing worse than being compared to a second rate version of an already shitty overlauded local band. If you were playing your dream bill, who would you be sandwiched in between? Given that there are four of us in the band and that our tastes are really coming from different angles, it would have to be a music festival featuring AC/DC, Motorhead, Parliament and Hot Snakes. Of course, considering this is a “dream” bill, I would substitute AC/DC with AC/DC circa Bon Scott and Hot Snakes with Drive Like Jehu. And then all of these bands would come up on stage at the end of the night and we’d jam out “Freebird” for an hour with about ten of us doing three note guitar solos all at the same time. What recording humbles you every time you hear it and why? Rye Coalition’s On Top is pretty much the recorded sound quality we’re looking for. It’s huge sounding, capturing the kick ass live show that is the Rye. Steve Albini rocks the mics. Worst gig you ever played and why? It’s hard to say which has been our worst show. It’s always good to be out playing. Unfortunately, answering this question will not bring about a great story about the time that the white rhino escaped from the circus and crashed into the Piccadilly pub and gored our previous bass player. Although that would have been cool. We haven’t got an abysmally poor show worth telling about. A few technical difficulties and some broken strings. We’re too positive to have worst shows. Favorite Stones song? We don’t like the Stones. I do from time to time. But as a band we don’t like the Rolling Stones. (Music Ed: Does Not Compute) Sarah Rowland
AFI Sing the Sorrow Nitro Records AFI finally grew up. Quite frankly, I liked them better when they stuck to their immature, goofy, short, fast punk songs about mohawks and breakfast cereal. Employing moody, slow, metallish guitar with Davey Havoks helium kid punk voice just doesn’t work for me, or for their new ‘arty, deep and dark’ direction. Acoustic guitar interludes? C’mon, what are we, Green Day? Fuck off. Too much dabbling for their own good. Cowboy TexAss Black Rice Rice Lightning Flyer Records Stop. Start. Change Direction. Start again. Dynamic. Dissonant yet harmonic. Stuck somewhere between what Fugazi started and At the Drive-In never finished. I don’t know what the hell “AfterMath-Rock” is supposed to mean but that’s what they’re calling this and it’s pretty damn good. TexAssinine Biohazard Kill or be killed Biohazard.com Yawn! Biohazard doesn’t really have much to offer no more. Their rapcore sound is getting’ too old and tiresome, there is nothing that gives it a fresh vibe. Biohazard had some sweet releases in the 90’s such as Urban Discipline, Mata Leao and I even liked the New World Disorder album released in ‘99. Kill or be Killed is just a generic concept album that somewhat deals with the 9/11 events. Biohazard are proud New Yorkers and it shows, but the could have put a bit more energy into this record. Adler Floyd Arrington de Dionyso and the Old Time Relijun Varieties of Religious Experience K Records No Wave was a small, short-lived New Yahk deconstructionist music scene that sprung up around the same time as the original punk scene. It died a quick death and the few bands and people involved moved on, evolved, or disappeared (or, like Lydia Lunch, got increasingly fat and annoying). So, naturally, I’m a wee bit suspect of the lil’ No-Wave revival that seems to be picking up steam right now—and even more so with any band waving the NoWave flag in 2003. I’m not saying you can’t be influenced by something that happened in a specific time and place but that is not what this is—this is trying to recreate something that happened in a specific time and place. No dice, kiddo—it’s not, how you say, nat-u-ral?. What happened to youth wanting to stomp on the past? Matt Davies The D4 6Twenty Hollywood Records Rock ‘n’ Roll from New Zealand. Johnny Thunders meets the Hives.
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70’s rock bounce and riffs a plenty, and they cover Guitar Wolf. Who else does that? Cowboy TexAss Fate2Hate Iron Fist Insurgence It was brought to my attention that Montreal’s Fate2Hate were comprised of exmembers of the Street Troopers, an anti fascist skinhead act from out that way as well. Being a fan of the groups melodic sound and political stance, I was hoping this would be along the same lines. Lyrically, F2H message seem somewhat similar. But on the musical side of things, we’re given a dose of that modern day mid tempo Hardcore sound with crunchy guitar sounds bordering on being metal without the guitar solos.... I have very little in common with this style mentioned however found this release to be enjoyable at times. Aaronoid Los Furios s/t Surrender Records 6 songs. Fast, furious, high melodic old school meets new school punk(ish) ska. A bit of latin and a bit spaghetti western infusion, lots of ‘woahs’ and ‘heys’. I like. Cowboy TexAss Matchbook Romance West for Wishing Epitaph This shiz couldn’t get any more emo if it tried. Yah, there are some punk elements on this record, but they are very minimal and overshadowed by pussy-pop qualities. “14 Balloons” is the first track and if, perhaps, the whole disk went in that direction, I might have had more positive shit to say. Anyway, if given a chance, Matchbook Romance would make the Much countdown, right after Simple Plan. All the emo kids would eat this shit up, in a positive way of course. This is a good record, but a little too wimpy for me, I need lyrical meat to go along with the crunch melodies. Adler Floyd Oi! Polloi Alive and Kicking Step 1 For the most part, I’ve always enjoyed the basic street punk style of this long running Scottish act. Their message was always loud and clear speaking against Fascism, animal exploitation and many other atrocities that plague the society we live in. Having not heard a new release in what seemed like eons, I was surprised that Oi! Polloi were still in fact “Alive and kicking”. Recorded in Geneva, Switzerland in April of last year, we get 19 songs recorded in 50 minutes and done in fine form. We get poignant hard hitting numbers such as “Americans Out”, “Nuclear Waste”, “Boot Down The Door”, and “Hunt The Rich” among others. Good social/political commentary between songs which at times takes as long as the songs themselves. This is Anarchoi! at it’s best. Aaronoid
Randy Welfare Problems Epitaph The Swedes are known for taking existing musical trends and regenerating them with a Scandinavian twist. Refused reshaped hardcore in the late nineties, while The Hives are currently putting the garage back in rock. So where does this leave Randy? Well, they make an earnest attempt at re-creating late-‘70s punk, but don’t quite succeed with their fifth full-length LP. Welfare Problems finds the band leaving their agit-punk roots for a more lighthearted approach, while giving their best to create a New York City circa 1979 vibe. On several tracks, Randy come off sounding like their previously mentioned suit-clad brethren and blatantly ripping off the Ramones on several occasions (but we can excuse this as an homage a la Hanson Brothers and Screeching Weasel). Fans of the band may appreciate their new affection for the past, but newcomers should hunt down Randy’s earlier albums The Human Atom Bombs or You Can’t Keep a Good Band Down. Adam Simpkins Shai Hulud That Within Blood Ill Tempered Metalcore maniacs Shai Hulud unleash their new full-length on the moshing masses, crushing both hardcore & metal stereotypes in their wake. The packaging & artwork on display is amazing, it really fits with the tunes, the production for which is crisp & clear so that no one instrument really stands out over the rest. The guitar-work is mostly of the Swedish-style melodic variety, but with enough chugging to keep the tough-guy hardcore fans happy. My only complaint would be the fairly typical vocals, & although they do sound suitably heartfelt & angry they shouldn’t have to resort to stating how “true” & “sincere” they are in the liner notes. The long song titles are pretty pretentious, but luckily the lyrics are poignant & poetic. This album will appeal to fans of Darkest Hour, Shadow’s Fall etc. So if you like your ‘core hard & your metal heavy, make sure you check this slab of rage out! Matt Smith Silvertide American Excess J Records This renegade fivesome from Philadelphia is a return to old-fashioned rock music, not necessarily cool, get up and move rock, but radio friendly rock. You have to be pretty good/tame to get the chance to open up for Aerosmith. This return to classic rock with power chords would be refreshing to main stream media who may quite likely jump all over this band it they are given a push. Even if I didn’t care for this three-song album, I hear that they are pretty damn good live. Daniel Leigh Stalemate Nothing But Kings Independent Stalemate is a post-grunge product; lightened sounds with some funky guitar riffs and a country sound thrown in for good measure. Jay Keis’ country vocals sound good on slower songs like “Why” and is very suitable for the up-beat song “Back at the Bar”. As the album went on, I felt it getting easier to listen to. I enjoyed this band the less they tried to rock and the more they took their time with the songs. There were actually a couple of decent songs out of the twelve recorded. A lot of acoustic guitars… fairly good if you like that kind of stuff. Daniel Leigh
Strapping Young Lad s/t Century Media
FEDERATION X
Mention SYL around here and expect cheers and praise of Devin Townsend’s genius and hero status. And why not? He makes Vancouver music look good, us fans, musicians, clubs, metal media, etc. The guitars are deathy and thrashy, Gene Hoglan’s drumming sounds smooth as ever, the bass tight/rhythmic, and Hevy Devy’s vox are virtuosic in a way that would make Steve Vai a la “Sex A Religion” crap his pants. I haven’t heard much Strapping but “Tour EP” ia an excellent introduction to the madness of the band. Ethereal. Heavy. With attitude. The live version of “Detox” (from “City”) is utterly fantastic and my favourite of the five tunes here (all of which are previously unreleased, remixes, oron the latest CD. Good for beginner SYL fan (if there are any left!) or diehard. Enthusiastic 5 *’s. The Last L.A. Explosion! Bomp Records In the summer of ‘79 someone out there fucked to this 8 track and named their child Willow. Well, it’s 20 some odd years later and this early psychedelic punk pop album has resurfaced with bonus tracks and other goodies. This shit is tight, that is, if you’re into the whole 70’s surf vibe mixed in with some early punk influences. If there was a sequel to American Graffiti, this surely would be the fuckin’ soundtrack. As records go, this isn’t for everyone, but I’d buy this over any 604 release, if you catch my drift. Adler Floyd The Willowz s/t 7” Posh Boy Posh Boy?! Posh Boy??!!! Posh Boy still puts out records?!! Who knew!?? For those of you who haven’t done your punk rock history; Posh Boy was (is, I guess) one of the first LA punk rock labels and put out important debuts from bands like Red Cross, TSOL, Agent Orange, and more. Then, for all extensive purposes, you know, stopped—or not—maybe they were just waiting until something good came along again. Well if that’s the case, this is it. Horrible band name and cover art aside; this record is pretty fucking rockin’ and fits in quite nice with that Posh Boy “sound”—namely the early, sloppily brilliant Red Cross, with an extra-fine coating of garage rock thrown on top. If Don Kirshner was to ever scout for a Punk Rock Monkees, I’m pretty sure these guys would be top in the running. Matt Davies
What group or musician does your band never want to be compared to musically? Liza Minelli. If you were playing your dream bill, who would you be sandwiched in between? Estelle Getty and Ginger Rodgers. What recording humbles you every time you hear it and why? The “All in the Family” record is amazing. I think they only put out one, but I don’t know why, ‘cause it’s fucking amazing. Archie Bunker is one of the best “front men” I think I’ve ever seen. I think he learned a lot of his moves from Freddie Mercury though, but I guess that’s obvious. I don’t know what it is about it that impresses me so much. Edith’s quality high-end vocals or the substantial bass that the “Meathead” is able to deliver so reliably. I just don’t know. But it’s magic. Worst gig you ever played and why? The worst gig we ever played was the Isle of Wight show we played with The Who back in ‘71. My guitar kept going out of tune, and I never really felt that my pants fit quite right, although Townsend’s tailor assured me it was a perfect fit. I knew I should have never trusted him!! Damn it! It’s one of my biggest regrets really, but hey, I’m just being honest. Best gig ever played and why? I’d say that was probably all the times we as a band or individuals were at the showoff gallery in Bellingham Washington. One I remember the most was an indoor roller skating party where we consumed a bunch of E and me beau roller-skated around holding hands. I got a great picture of that. We didn’t even play that particular night. Just good times, good friends, and great oldies. Sarah Rowland
Federation X X Patriot Estrus Records I know it’s wrong to judge a person by his or her voice, but lead singer Dirty Bill just sounds like he would be a really good fuck. His disheveled, unkempt singing reveals a crazed Northwest mountain man who could just bang the BeJesus out of you with the same raw primal instinct that powers his arrogantly commanding voice. No foreplay here. There’s just no time for it. Just pull my pants down around my ankles and ram me with the harddrive of synchronized guitars heard in
“Apeshit”. Live, the Bellingham trio is the kind of band that mesmerizes men because of the no-frills, torrentially loud, six-string controlled beating and brainsbashing drumming. However, after the ladies get a listen to the grungy blooze groove of tracks like “Gone too Long ”, you can expect to see a lot more of the fairer sex up front at the next Fed X show. Other stand-outs include the last single, “Stone Soup”, proving X Patriot can get it up for a second round, this time a slow grinding session…all night long. Beef Curtains
V/A Life’s A Gas Amp Records What,another one? This must be the fourth one now. I mean, come on, how many Ramones covers can one endure in a lifetime anyhow? Oh, wait a minute here, these tunes actually appear to be all originals dedicated to the late Joey Ramone. On this compilation we’re given 31 acts from The States, Canada, England, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Brazil, Sweden, Italy, Argentina, Iceland and Spain. I’d be lying if I said that I’d even heard of all but two of these acts. With this release being a tribute, it gives very little feel of what they would normally be capable of. Still, however, the songs range from being alright to enjoyable. Aaronoid
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s t r a UNDERWATER NAZI ZOMBIES i LIKE TO MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR LIFE g S h t
by Sinister Sam
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o, this time around I must admit that I’m fucking tapped. I was going to slap up an article on the whole hearted US slasher film to celebrate the fuckwad war, but then I remembered that I already wrote about that shit a while ago. Great, I already did it – and I didn’t remember. All of this blabbering is a fair warning for those who care that the “GORE!” Sinister Sam articles may take a turn so that I don’t mess you around with the same fucking genre coverage every month, the same jibberish, and the same old Eurotrash-geek-fan mentality. To make shit easier for everyone, and more fun, I thought that I’d take the Nerveland Smut Ranch approach and just cover one or two
films that need some talking about, making the task more relevant as the releases may be coming out on DVD somewhere – if my timing is accurate at all. So, here we go: SHOCK WAVES (1977) This US masterpiece can be evaluated in many different ways. The major importance of this film is the fact that it started what may be the most fucked up specialized horror film genre of all time – THE UNDEAD NAZI TROOPS. Jean Rollin did a mighty fine job with the perennial favourite ZOMBIE LAKE. Of course, Jess Franco also had a go at the Nazi undead with OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES and instead, just stuck the rot
(*Note: If it’s of interest to anyone, I’ve made up a literal cut and paste of most of my old Nerve articles with a cool b/w cover. All stapled together, the 21 pages make up a pretty good overview of genre films. You can ask me for a copy through the magazine (editor@thenervemagazine.com).
STAN BRAKHAGE’S 23RD PSALM BRANCH “An apocalypse of the imagination - the furthest Brakhage came in extending the language of 8mm cinema” (P.A. Sitney)
DICKIN’ AROUND Dick Tracy, Jungle Girl, and Batman voice-dubbed live!
SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY PLUS: A HISTORY OF BARBIE COMMERCIALS THROUGH THE AGES
BUILDING HEAVEN, REMEMBERING EARTH: CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN ARCHITECT. With director Oliver Hockenhull in person, presented by DOC IN THE HOUSE
NEW LIVE WORKS BY LOSCIL & RANDY JONES
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Interactive computer-based audio-visual works, featuring MAX/MSP/JITTER-based programming
MASSIVE CALIGARI ATTACK Classic German Horror meets MEZZANINE, courtesy DEEP BLUE FUNK FILMS
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OKIE NOODLING Dir: Takeshi Kitano 1995 From the maker of Kikujiro comes Minnâyatteruka! (AKA Getting Any?), the story of one horny man’s quest to get laid. Follow the hapless loser Asao as he sometimes imagines and often implements harebrained schemes to acquire everything a person needs to get chicks - a car and an airline ticket in first class. Of course you need money to obtain either, so the “dead broke” Asao spends a lot of the movie trying to get some quick cash. Asao’s escapades include robbing banks, becoming an actor, joining the yakuza, and volunteering as a guinea pig for scientific experiments. Meanwhile, naked titties abound. Getting Any? covers a lot of comedic ground. There is subtle drollery mixed with blatant toilet humour, all strung together like an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The film is also teeming with parody, from Kurosawa films to Godzilla to Ghostbusters. Granted, aficionados of Japanese pop culture will appreciate a lot more of the jokes than otherwise (do you know who Lone Wolf and Cub is?), but it’s not necessary to enjoy the film. If you are familiar with “Beat” Takeshi’s work, you’ll detect his trademark deadpan absurdist personality from start to finish of Getting Any? Although Takeshi is well known for his violent yakuza films like Sonatine and Hana-Bi (which Getting Any finds time to parody), what is less well known is that he was half of one of Japan’s most popular television comedy duos. Unfortunately, the movie starts to lose focus about two-thirds the way through. Asao gets so involved in his capers, which become more and more surreal as the movie progress, that he seems to lose track of his initial quest for sex. Some of the scenes, especially the ones where music is being performed, would have been mildly amusing if they were quick cuts, but sadly they tend to go on an on until you start looking for a book to read.
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Getting Any?
Experience the thrill of catching a 60-pound catfish with your bare hands... featuring music by THE FLAMING LIPS
BYO8: BRING YOUR OWN FILM Bring it down and screen it tonight!
FRANK ZAPPA’S 200 MOTELS
The ultracool “filmusical” ancestor of rock videos, with RINGO STARR, KEITH MOON and more!
JERRY GRANELLI: IN THE MOMENT The incredible story of this astounding jazz drumming master, with director COLIN MACKENZIE in person!
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PLASTER CASTER: A COCKUMENTARY
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will strengthen up the Vancouver cult films shopping ante along with BLACK DOG, VIDEOMATICA, and REEL-HORROR rather nicely. Since it’s from Blue Underground, the SW DVD should be available at all the locations for rent or purchase. Have fun with the obsessive buying and remember to wear underwear when swimming in case there’s a French film crew working subsurface. SINISTER SAM
Seven Day Diamonds
The intimate portrait of CYNTHIA PLASTER CASTER and her infamous casts of famous rock n’ roll cock.
FUGAZI’S INSTRUMENT JEM COHEN’s highly praised doc on the anti-corporate and wildly talented FUGAZI.
ION ZOO PLAY LIVE TO ALIBI
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corpses in the sand rather than the water. The only other main effort on this particular fucked up plot system is Lucio Fulci’s GHOSTS OF SODOM, but those were more of the phantom sex Nazi variety. Director Ken Wiederhorn’s SHOCK WAVES that predates the three above Eurotrash “masterpieces” is a haunting pseudo classic that has some sincerely creepy moments and rolls along like a steady US or Hammer style horror jaunt. SHOCK WAVES has kept the interest of horror fans for quite some time now, recently rejuvenated in my little circle by the constant referral to that “rad underwater nazi zombie” movie that we “watched at a birthday party when we were kids”. I scored a copy of it at a place I worked at long ago, hence the startled faces when I can state that, yeah, I have that film. This curious fascination with the film can only be derived by the very gloomy visuals of the underwater storm trooper walks and the seemingly impossible but supernatural upheaval of an old German battleship that facilitated the battle corpses. Of course, the reappearance of the (Death) ship is brought on by some vacationers that happen upon the reeflike area in a tour boat captained by the one and only pseudo Dr. Frankenstein – John Carradine. The old captain expires rather quickly after he checks out the hull, leaving the
hottie; Brooke Adams, with some whiners to hit the local island and find out from self exiled former Nazi scientist Dr. Frankenstein no. 2 Peter Cushing (watching him lounge with Carradine behind the camera must have been pretty choice) what’s up with the “perfect” unbeatable “death corps” history, the killing(s), and the local inhabitants that look a lot like old grey SS troopers hanging out 100 feet away in the swamp. Sooner than later, the stars begin to fall into the onslaught, dying off until the only hero figures out the secret to stall/kill the rotting, goggled, SS faces. The dinghy left over for him and Brooke Adams is really small and daunting, resulting in some small water battle and a choice “stir crazy from the ocean experience” ending. I won’t give away the rest. The film won’t leave you with a bad taste in your mouth because it has good continuation and an aesthetic that is subtle enough not to make you shit your pants from MTV style flash editing. Again, the seventies come through with a US effort that pushes plot ideals to a creepy prelude and finale. SS / panzerfaust / wolfpack / dead sea / ocean zombies - what on earth could pack more dark evil? I spotted the newer Blue Underground release of SHOCK WAVES for sale at the newest cult video store ODDITY CINEMA up on 15th and Main. This new store
Live accompaniment to America’s first expressionistic crime film!
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TV CARNAGE’S CASUAL FRIDAYS More reprocessed and recontextualized TV disease from the VICE-approved CARNAGE CREW
DIRECT ANIMATION REVOLUTION NOW! DEVON DAMONTE IN PERSON with the handmade cameraless animation screening and workshop (pre-registration required)
JESUS CHRIST VAMPIRE HUNTER LEE DEMARBRE’s kung-fu action meets biblical prophecy classic
THE TARGET SHOOTS FIRST CHRIS WILCHA’s searing indictement of COLUMBIA HOUSE RECORDS by way of NIRVANA
INCIDENT AT OGLALA + AMERICA’S MANDELA JOINT EFFORT’s evening devoted to revisiting LEONARD PELTIER
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THE NARCOLEPTIC VIDEOGRAPHER 3: NARCO THREE-DEE 27-29 From NARCO HQ to you, visual drugs for the masses featuring WHYTE RAWK, FULL CONTACT RELIGION and more!
Stick with it though — there are some genuine guffaws to be had in this film, even if it’s not Kitano’s best. Plus—the titties. Toren McBoren Macbin
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Puzzle Page First 3 entries will win an Alkaline Trio "Good Mourning" T-shirt from Vagrant Records. Alkaline Trio "Good Mourning" In Stores Now
Show your ugly face at the Nerve Office: 508-825 Granville St. Vancouver, Mon-Fri 10am-5pm ‘ish... 1
by Dan Scum
90’s CROSSWORD Across
BloodRayne Developer: Terminal Reality Publisher: Majesco Inc. Platform: PC Rating: M Web: postal2.com The fuckin’ Nazis are tryin’, once again, to take over the simulated world and this time the only motherfucker who can stop them is… well... a vicious vampire named Rayne. BloodRayne is part of a group called the Brimstone Society- which hunts supernatural threats (yada, yada, yada) and let me tell ya, the squareheads are full of crazy shit. This game is an action fan’s dream; it has tons of gore, weapons, crazy moves, slo-mo, and tits. There isn’t much to the “kick some ass and save the world” story, but the game does provide countless cut scenes that inform. The game plays very well, I must say, and going through all the levels is a fuckin’ riot. Ranging from indoor settings to outdoor environments, there is enough variety to keep one glued to this title, even if it’s for just a while. Rayne has some very cool
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features at her disposal. She can attack all her enemies by biting on them to regain health, plus, she can virtually pick up any weapon that gets dropped, including a robot. BloodRayne gets new moves and skills with the completion of each few levels, so then you can unleash a motherfuckin’ fury of welltimed and executed maneuvers on the Nazis. There are a few things that are missing from the game, though, like there is no multiplayer, which is too bad because it would have been fun running around in 3rd person and fight-
ing against your buddies or even having a co-op mode where you and a friend go through a level fighting AI. Anyway, I won’t bore you fuckers with the rest, this game is pretty fun. Gets my vote. Next month I’ll be putting on the MotoGP 2 review and perhaps another secret game. Adler Floyd
Eye Candy: 4 Tunes: 3.5 Gameplay: 4 Chill Factor: 4 Verdict: Simple hack n’ slash with tits. The sequel will be much better, trust me.
1. Marsh 4. Leader of the “coalition of the willing” 7. Out of the ordinary 10. Crony 13. Gorrilla, e.g 14. Type of shot 15. For each 16. 90’s punk band Pennyw____ 17. 90’s grunge pioneers 19. West coast university 20. Alias initials 21. Bruce’s ex 22. Whirlpool 24. More banal 26. 90’s LP by Soundgarden 29. Type of acid 31. Envious colour 32. 90’s CBC computer show 33. Former Communist country 34. Subway choice 37. Rivers or Collins 38. The princess and the _____ 39. Scorch 40. Docs’ assts. 41. Did the crawl 43. Mexican Mouse 45. 90’s dance diva 46. Pissed off 47. 90’s Vancouver band (fornicate with Richard) 51. 90’s Drum god Lars 52. Style of dance 53. Price 57. Band that released “13 flavours of Doom” and “The Black Spot” in the 90’s 58. Boxers stat. 60. Inherited gifts 62. James Bond or Austin Powers 63. Mr. Wallach 64. High school subject (abbrv.) 65. 90’s Wayne’s World hottie 66. Owners of a lonely heart 67. Local skaters initials (zhong) 68. Just scrape by 69. Hockey player Bobby or Golfer Gary
Down
1. Musical or Native Indian group 2. Mayberry boy 3. Type of warfare
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4. She played Mrs. Mia Wallace quarter flat 5. Solar dark cool dot 44. Like Tiger Woods 6. Open-mouthed 45. Counterattack letters 7. Sometimes they’re special 47. Crack making requirement 8. Clearly outlines 48. Marry secretly 9. More inebriated 49. Doctors pictures 10. Billy Joel’s instrument 50. Film workers union 11. View ______Productions 54. Suspecting of (Clerks, Mallrats, etc.) 55. Wake from sleep 12. Absorb information 56. Russian ruler 18. Old school SK8 company 59. Bro & ____ 23. War of words 61. Golf ball position 25. Green Gables Gal 27. Numero ______ Last Issue’s Solution: 28. Sky bear S T R A W C O M E S E R F 29. Olde spelling of a huge amount S H A N E A N O N A V E R of time T E N E T R ON J E R E M Y 30. Business D E A T O Y S degrees 32. Tobacco giant’s A S P R AT A Y E S P A initials S E L L E R A G E C L A P 34. Red root, red S Q U E A L M U D S L I D E root M G M P I E T O M 35. Part of a mafia family I M P A S S E S T R A I N S 36. Rugby touchF E E L L E S H I K E R S down G A P B O P R AW 38. Psycho ending? S I R S A S H A R P 39. An attempt to contact the dead P O O P S H O O T E D I T H 41. British raincoat A R E A E L L E R OC C O 42. Keep secret R ED S S A I N T 43. Half a case or a P E R T
90’s WORD SEARCH!
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NERVELAND SMUT RANCH
Naked News:
Shay Sights, the “used to live in Vancouver” star of Naked News
Real People, Real News, Real Nasty
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on’t let the title fool you, there is nothing real about this news show. From the fake boobs to the cheesy set-ups, this film delivers my kind of news. Naked News is a compilation of ingenious set-ups which are then exposed on their special news show. Shay Sights is the busty anchor who not only delivers the news, but occasionally provides a commentary for the various scenes. Scene one: Mother’s Day Dick-Sucking stars Zarina as
Hilary, a stay at home housewife who has nothing better to do than wait at home for the meter man to come and read her meter. Mike, played by Chris Charming, arrives decked out in a hard hat and a tool belt. Instead of reading Hilary’s meter, which he couldn’t find, Hilary reads Mike’s big, red, throbbing measuring stick which says: time to fuck! First Hilary sucks Mike’s dick while he fingers her extremely wet dripping pussy and then he shoves a couple of fingers up her ass. The funniest part of this scene is when the news crew jumps out of the closet and exposes this cheating housewife on national television while cum drips off of her face. What will poor Timmy think when he finds out his mom had sex with the meter man on his Winnie the Pooh bedspread? Scene two: Features Mariah, Love Lee, and Herschel Savage in “Sappie Slut-Sitters”. Mariah and Love Lee are a couple of young looking cuties who babysit pervert Mr. Johnson’s ugly baby. The baby is quietly sleeping and the two girls get bored. Hmmm what to do? Let’s eat each other’s pussy!
And so they do. But where did these sweet innocent babysitters find that strap-on? It doesn’t matter because Mr. Johnson comes home early to find his babysitters reaming each other from behind and he is upset. His mood quickly changes when he is asked to join in and all three get it on. Other scenes include: “Tail Gate Gang-Bang Tramp”, where the action not only takes place on the rear of the truck, but this tramp’s tail gate is also banged, and even has enough room for double penetration. There is also “Bawdy Bachelorette’s” and “The Blair Bitch Project”. This film is another good one for the collection which will make you look at news in a different way. I would like to thank Ultimate Amore, which is located at 7591 - 6th St. in Burnaby, for supplying last month’s videos. Next issue there will be another review featuring special guest and porn star extraordinaire Maja Lee. See ya then. Max Crown
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